Bedstead



N.PETERS, PHDTO-LITHOGRAFHER WASHINGTON D C in the posts, the narrow side of the tenons UNITED sfIATEs PATENT oEEIoE.

BENJAMIN HINKLEY, OF TROY, NEW YORK.

BEDSTEAD.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 24,878, dated July 26, 1859.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN HINKLEY, of the city of Troy, in the county of Rensi selaer and State of New York, have invented t a certain new and useful improvement in that common kind of bedstead in which the side rails are held to the end rails and posts by means of tension-cords or rods which support the bed-bottom; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description of the saine, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making a part of this specification, in which- Figure l is an isometrical projection, Fig. 2 a vertical longitudinal section, and Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and S, isometrical projections of parts, of one of my improved bedsteads.

The same letters refer to like parts in all t-he figures.

My invention consists in uniting the endrails to the posts, in bedsteads of the kind irst above mentioned. by means of dovetailed tenons, m or m, on the end-rails, and corresponding dove-tailed mortises, a or a',

being arranged even with the inner faces of the end-rails, and the corresponding narrow sides of the inortises being open, and on those sides of the posts which the ends of the side-rails, J, J, bear against; so that when the tenons of the end-rails are inserted in the mortises, the narrow sides of the tenons will be even or nearly so with the face of the posts, so that the ends of the siderails will bear against the tenons of the endrails, as shown in the annexed drawings; the tenons being either glued 'fast in the mortises, or left free Vto be removed therefrom, as circumstances shall require. I thus unite together the end-rails and posts, of this kind of bedstead, by the dove-tailed tenons and mortises arranged as above described, in order that the end-rails shall thereby, not only hold the posts securely by a cheap, neat, and tight joint, and shall also retain the requisite strength to withstand all the powerful strain which may be put upon them by the tension rods, but shall also at the same time, and by reason of the same arrangement of the dove-tailed tenons and inortises, receive the pressure of the siderails, without the intervention of the posts; whereby the latter are left without any strain upon them tending to loosen theln from the end-rails.

In bedsteads which have the posts framed to the end-rails by the common square or rectangular tenons and mortises, the endrails are too liable to become split off at the shoulders of the tenons by straining the bedsupporting tension-rods, a, a, secured to the end-rails. To remedy that defect I first united the side and end rails into a frame entirely independent of the posts, as claimed in my U. S. Patent of Dec. 25, 1849; but in that case it was necessary to make each post in two parts, with one part below and the other above the rails, which construction left the posts too weak, and the ends of the rails exposed, and increased the cost of the bedstead. But by securing the posts by means of the dove-tailed tenons and mortises arranged as shown in the annexed drawings, I not only retain the strength of the end-rails so that they cannot be split or broken by the tension of the rods, a, a, upon them; and also cause the end-rails to receive the pressure of the ends of the side-rails without the intervention of, or any strain upon, the posts; but also make each post, K, in a single pie-ce extending from the floor to above the rails, and thereby cover up the bad-appearing ends of the rails at the same time that the bedstead-frame costs less than any other known to me of equal or suilicient strength.

I am aware that it is not new to frame boards or timbers together by dovetailed tenons and mortises so arranged that the narrow side of the tenon is even with one face of the part upon which it is made, and so that the narrow sides of the niortises are open, an example being shown in the common square wooden boxes formed of boards doveta-iled together at their upright angles. But I am not aware that in a bedsteadframe or any like structure having siderails, end-rails, and posts arranged and held together by tension rods acting upon the end-rails, the posts and end-rails have been framed together by dove-tailed tenons and mortises arranged in the particular manner shown in the annexed drawings, or so as to secure the advantages, or for the purposes, above specified.

What I Claim as new, and of my inven- 5 tion, and desire to secure by Letters Patents- The arrangement of the dovetaled tenons, m or m, on the end-rails, B, and correspondng dove-ta1ed mortises, n or n', in the full posts, K, with the side-rails, J, and 1on- 10 gtudnal tension-rods, a, as and for the purposes herein set forth.

BENJA. HINKLEY. Witnesses AUSTIN F. PARK, GEORGE MACARDLE. 

